Christian Schenkel

As technician I support the group as much as possible. Ordering, checking bills, preparing competent cells, and keeping our cell cultures alive are my common tasks. Additionally, I support individual lab members in their projects, but I hope to pursue my own project in the future as well. Outside the lab, I enjoy my free time by learning languages, playing video games and playing trading card games with friends.

Oliver Artz

The COP1/SPA complex has evolved to be one of the most important regulators of plant growth and development in response to light. I want to understand the evolutionary conservation of the complex. To this end, I take a closer look at early diverging land plants like the moss Physcomitrella patens and the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. I investigate whether these organisms have a functional COP1/SPA complex and to what extent it is involved in light signal transduction.

When I am not in the lab, I like going to the gym and travel to as many interesting places as my salary allows.

Tobias Schenk

The SPA2 protein shows the largest difference in activity between dark and light grown seedlings and makes it a particularly attractive SPA protein to study. I’m interested in the functional and mechanistic analysis of light induced SPA2 degradation and COP1/SPA inactivation.

Konstantin Kerner

One of my projects addresses the question why SPA proteins are required for the correct functionality of the E3 ubiquitin ligase COP1. a prominent hypothesis is that SPAs facilitate cooperativity between COP1 and a member of the CUL4/DDB1 E3 ligase complex, DDB1. I am using triple interaction assays as well as genetic and bioinformatic approaches to investigate this hypothesis. I am also investigating whether WD repeat domains of COP1 and SPA1 are interchangeable in regarding their functionality by generating domain-swapped transgenic lines. This could potentially provide valuable insights into the specific interactions of COP1 and SPA1 with their interaction partners.

Apart from science, I enjoy my spare time by longboarding and reading graphic novels.